Dallas Mavericks are Quietly Having One of the Best Offseasons in the NBA

By Ian Van Doren

Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

This offseason has been like a bad re-run of that Lifetime movie that always seems to run every time you turn on the television and no matter how hard you try not to watch it, your misplaced intrigue gets the better of you. With LeBron James re-enacting “The Decision — Part Dos” (that’s “two” in Spanish) and Carmelo Anthony stringing New York Knicks fans along for the last two months, it has been a lot to handle and let’s be honest, downright annoying at times.

Meanwhile with all this drama going on, the Dallas Maverickshave been having themselves a nice little offseason. The Mavs, who were the eighth seed in last year’s Western Conference playoffs, put together a more than respectable season winning 49 games and falling one win short of knocking off the defending champion San Antonio Spurs in seven games. After an impressive year where many thought they overachieved, the Mavs’ organization has not taken its foot off the gas pedal this offseason and has markedly improved the roster. Mark Cuban and company again have quietly put together another solid offseason that will see the Mavericks right in the thick of things in 2014-15.

In one of the first trades to begin the NBA offseason, the Mavericks swapped Jose Calderon, Shane Larkin, Samuel Dalembert, Wayne Ellington and two second-round picks for Tyson Chandler and Raymond Felton. Although Dallas gave up a lot to get Chandler back in a Mavericks uniform, it was well worth the price. If my memory serves me correctly, the last time Chandler donned the blue and white jersey, they stomped the Miami Heat in the Finals. Chandler was the heart and soul of that team and it will be no different this year. Oh, and Felton is no slouch either when he’s on the court. As long as the Mavericks can get him to ease up on the third-degree weapons possession charges, he should be a very productive player for them. Easy fix, right?

The Mavericks also re-signed Dirk Nowitzki to a more than reasonable contract of three years and $25 million. This will bring Dirk into his twilight years and will allow him to retire as a life-long Maverick. Pretty cool stuff and it is just another example of how the guy is all class. This is the second time he has taken significantly less money to stay in Dallas and win. Oh, and in case we forgot, the dude can still ball. At 36 years of age, he averaged 21.7 points per game with a 49 percent field goal percentage. Not too shabby.

If the Mavericks were to stop there, I would still argue that they had a pretty decent offseason, but they didn’t. Last week, they managed to swoop in out of nowhere and pry the 6-foot-10 Swiss-Army knife forward Chandler Parsons away from the Houston Rockets in a move that the Rockets are still scratching their heads over. Asking themselves … Did that really just happen? I mean nobody saw that coming … Like nobody. Parsons averaged almost 17 points per game on a team that already had James Harden and Dwight Howard and his well-rounded style of play that allows him to do just about everything at a high level will compliment Nowitzki’s game nicely.

With Ricky Ledo maturing and potentially becoming a scoring force in the league, Devin Harris re-signing this summer, coupled with the added depth of the remaining proven players from last year’s squad, Maverick fans have a lot to be excited about.

The Dallas Mavericks are going to be good next year. How good remains to be seen.